The photo of Silicon Valley centi-billionaires at Donald Trump’s inauguration — Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, front row and side by side — now looks like a hitlist for a blue Congress hellbent on making life difficult for billionaires.
The picture symbolized the bending of the knee by the richest men in the world to its most powerful. Already unfathomably wealthy, Silicon Valley tycoons believed a MAGA-sized public shift to the right would enrich them even more. It did. For several years, while Trump seemed an everlasting kingmaker and AI’s expansion seemed unstoppable, their fortunes ballooned to values beyond comprehension. Elon Musk’s surpassed $1 trillion.
In the harsh blue light of Tuesday’s midterms, though, going all-in on MAGA seems an unwisely unhedged bet. Democrats took decisive control of the US Congress, flipping seats right and left that in previous years seemed like given wins for Republicans.
Voter Anger at Tech
Voters concerned about corruption expressed their displeasure at oligarchs’ blatant attempts to create a political environment to their liking. Voting against technocrats drove people into the hands of Democrats and away from Republicans. Tech oligarchs themselves, along with anger over the AI boom, datacenters, and Flock surveillance cameras, shifted the tides.
“Voters rejected Republicans in part because they were bought and paid for by AI billionaires. Democrats must hold them accountable instead of cashing their checks,” wrote Texas Democratic representative Greg Casar.
Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff, who won re-election to the Senate, summed up the prevailing attitude in his victory speech. “The titans of Silicon Valley dig bunkers for themselves and warn that the artificial intelligence they’re creating risks human extinction,” he said. He pledged to bring “big tech to heel.”
Others were more bellicose. Ed Markey, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, tweeted: “They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.”
The Datacenter Fight
Democrats have promised congressional investigations into tech companies and moratoriums on datacenters, which may hamstring compute-hungry AI companies.
In the past year, major AI firms have been competing in a fierce race to buy or build massive, resource-intensive facilities full of semiconductor chips to supply their growing needs for computing power. Americans hate them. Democrats stand firmly in the way of that arms race.
Democrats took governors’ mansions by promising to institute moratoriums on hyperscale datacenter construction. Gina Hinojosa of Texas, Amy Acton of Ohio, and Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia have all pledged pauses.
The Investigations
Letters to preserve records for future investigations have already gone out to Nvidia and Amazon. Tech was the villain of the midterms. Angry constituents want to see it penalized.
Elon Musk presents a meaty target as the billionaire most closely allied with the Trump administration and the richest man in the world. Investigating his conduct with the “department of government efficiency,” which laid waste to the humanitarian agency USAID and wide swaths of the US government, will be a political lay-up for Democrats newly in control.
Musk had the worst night of anyone but Trump on Tuesday. The world’s richest man gave $450 million in support of Republican candidates, most of all to Ken Paxton in Texas, but reaped little reward. Paxton lost by a major margin. In what seemed like capitulation, Musk deleted a Tuesday tweet that read: “Vote red today!”
By Wednesday morning, Musk wrote: “Datacenters in space are looking pretty good right now.”
Zuckerberg and Altman
Mark Zuckerberg may feel déjà vu when he finds himself sitting across the table from an inquisition, as he repeatedly did at the end of the 2010s. The Meta CEO made a nakedly political pivot under Trump 2.0 with his shift to the right. He appeared at Mar-a-Lago to show off Meta’s camera-equipped glasses to Trump and axed his company’s DEI program.
Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, also seen at Mar-a-Lago, appeared in damage control mode on Tuesday.
His tweet read like a Bernie Sanders talking point: “People should not cede control of the future to superintelligence, and that requirement should ultimately constrain AI progress.” Altman appeared to be trying to distance himself from Trump’s free-for-all stance.
The Bottom Line
Tech billionaires who courted Trump are facing a reckoning as Democrats take control of Congress. Voters angry about corruption, the AI boom, and datacenters helped drive Democratic victories. Democrats have promised investigations into tech companies, moratoriums on datacenter construction, and scrutiny of Musk’s role in DOGE. Musk spent $450 million backing Republicans and got little in return. The billionaires of Silicon Valley now face a Congress eager to hold them accountable.
